As modern medicine continues to rapidly improve through technological advancements, Chancellor Michael F. Collins is urging caregivers to remain committed to compassionate care, in a new TEDx Talk.
“There’s great concern in our profession about the wave of data and information that all clinicians must utilize as they care for patients,” Chancellor Collins said in the TEDx presentation. “There’s concern that artificial intelligence, technological developments and new treatment modalities will actually come between the caregivers and their patients, make it more difficult to hold their hands.”
He said the doctor–patient relationship must be more important than the “doctor–computer relationship.”
“As we look to the future, and to all the wonderful things that are occurring in medicine, it feels to me like it’s important that we bring together the caring relationship with the new biologics, diagnostics and technological regimens that exist,” he said. “It will only be through that humanistic approach that we can once again revitalize our profession and again, bring to our patients that caring relationship that they so desperately want.”
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. Collins spoke at the Oct. 5 TEDx conference in Waltham.
Watch the full TEDx Talk, here: The power of preserving the healing touch of medicine | Michael F. Collins | TEDxWaltham